


The Small Rain

by istia



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV George Cowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-11-05
Updated: 2003-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:11:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/istia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A monastery, Cowley, and a revelation...or two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Small Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Written in Nov 2000 and published in Nov 2003.
    
    
      
    
       Western wind when wilt thou blow
         that the small rain down can rain?
       Christ that my love were in my arms
         and I in my bed again!
    
            --Anonymous, possibly early sixteenth century

Of all the places to shelter a collection of some of the most deadly men in England, a Franciscan priory was high on the list of ironic choices.

George Cowley smiled to himself in acknowledgement that this ancient stone building would hardly be his men's choice for accommodation either, given their druthers. He was grateful, nonetheless, to the Prior. When the group of bedraggled agents, stinking of gun oil and sweat and on edge with undissipated adrenaline, had landed on his doorstep unannounced some five hours previously, the Prior had immediately made them welcome. A fierce electrical storm in the midst of a continual drenching rainfall, which had swollen a local river so it had finally burst its banks and put a bridge underwater, had stranded the bulk of the force in this bleak part of Derbyshire until they could be airlifted out in the morning. It was only luck the four prisoners and their keepers--along with McCabe, who had carelessly fallen against a harrow and sliced his hand open--had made it out before the clean-up crew at the isolated farm the next field over were cut-off. And, irony though it might be to shelter violent men within this cloister dedicated to peace, the violence CI5 of necessity wielded was at least aimed at protecting the peace, not at destroying the good and the hope throughout the land.

Cowley pushed himself wearily to his feet with his hands pressing against the nicked but smooth surface of the ancient elm table, made satiny by countless years of human touch. Only three of his men were still huddling close to the fat-bellied stove that warmed the refectory. They were possibly as reluctant as Cowley to retreat to the unheated sleeping quarters. His leather shoes, almost dry after hours in the snug room, tapped against the flagstones as he headed for the door in the east wall. Once thrice its present size, this less grand but more homey common room had been created fifty years or so ago, the Prior had told him, by framing off this end of the grand hall that had once housed a full complement of Grey Friars and visiting mendicants. The decline in members had been steady over the past decades. The brethren supported themselves with their beehives, the jams they made from their fruit trees and brambles, and the crafts for which they were renowned, along with the friary's shrunken, but still sufficient, patrimony. Sufficient, at any rate, for their modest needs.

This house would have little need to enforce the rule of poverty: its members had scant opportunity to do other than obey the stricture. They would have housed and fed CI5's contingent for free. Cowley, however, intended to make sure fair reimbursement was sent them.

He paused to warn his men not to abuse the Prior's hospitality by using too much of the coal, then took a breath and stepped through the door into the echoing great room. A single lightbulb dangling from a wire tacked to one of the exposed rafters barely cut the gloom in the large area. The modernised portion of the room had a low, false ceiling that had no decorative value, but created a cosier space. Cowley suspected the brethren had left the light burning solely for their guests' benefit when they had excused themselves at the ringing of the Compline bells. They would not, he had been informed, be returning to the common room after their devotions. "Early to bed and early to rise" was the rule kept in this house. The light swung in a draught from somewhere--not a hole in the roof or the floor would be awash--but Cowley merely hurried across the empty expanse, buttoning his overcoat as he headed for the studded oak door at the far end.

It shouldn't be even colder in the long passageway into which the door opened, but it felt like it. Doorways led off either side of the narrow corridor, none with a door but set so that each faced a blank wall. The dark openings staggered in a zigzag pattern down the length of this unused wing that had once housed twenty friars. The present incumbents had more modern quarters in the opposite wing, Cowley had noted on a brief tour, complete with doors for privacy and individual heaters and, as two rooms had in each case been knocked together into one, larger personal spaces.

The Prior had spoken with rueful humour as he showed Cowley where they could accommodate his people. "When this building was constructed, these cells were luxurious in comparison to the standards of living of many of the commonfolk. Hard to contemplate, isn't it! To our mediaeval ancestors, the privacy of a room all one's own was itself luxurious in an age when even the mistress of the house shared her bed with her servants when her husband was away--though cold, mind, in the winter. Of course, these cells were Spartan to the sons of gentry who were actually sent to the Church and who had to accustom themselves to the monastic life, but not significantly so." He paused and smiled. "We live in a soft age, Mr Cowley. Our modern quarters might be Spartan in contrast to the general living conditions of our time, but they offer a degree of luxury even some nobles of previous ages might not have envisioned. I find it curious to ponder. I am sorry we don't have a proper guest house to offer you, but many generations of brethren did safely, if not comfortably, occupy these rooms year round until our numbers dwindled after the Great War."

Aye, indeed; countless men had occupied these cells in weather far more exacting than a rainstorm in early April. Still, he couldn't stop a longing thought straying to the sofa in his office--the idea of his own bed being far too much like punishment even to contemplate--before he banished it. None of them were likely to die of a single night's cold. His men were fit enough to withstand a bit of a drenching or they didn't belong in CI5.

He glanced into the first room, saw a dark figure on a narrow bed and moved on. The men appeared to have taken the first empty room that offered as each successive cell down the corridor held an occupant, barely illuminated by the dim light from the sconces in the hallway, only every second of which held a bulb. Enough light to see by, but not enough to disturb anyone who might actually have managed to fall asleep. Cowley rubbed his leg--in which the cold, damp, and exertions of the day had raised the devil of an ache--and continued to move slowly along. He counted shadowed lumps as he went, head turning from side to side as each doorway appeared.

As he proceeded, he realised it was not only cooler in this wing, but that the cold was increasing. Peering ahead, he saw an ill-fitting window at the far end that was rattling under the buffs of the storm outside and must be letting in frigid air. No wonder the men had taken the cells at the closer end of the corridor. He faced, it seemed, an even more uncomfortable night than he had been expecting.

For a moment, he regretted not accepting the Prior's offer of a room in the modernised part of the building. It had been nothing but foolish pride to consign himself to his men's lot simply because the Prior had shown him his own room and offered Cowley its use. A room as simple as the other living quarters, with a scrupulously clean but bare plank floor, whitewashed walls, and no furniture other than a neat single bed and a small wardrobe. The sole decoration was a large, finely wrought crucifix on the wall above the bed. Only the size and the quality of workmanship evident in the antique cross marked the room as belonging to the Prior rather than one of the ordinary brethren. The sin of pride had raised its grinning head and leered at Cowley as he had assured the Prior he would be perfectly fine lodging alongside his people, that military men were accustomed to all manner of conditions. Och, if the Prior could live like that all the days and nights of his life, then one night of cold discomfort was truly not to be considered.

Still, even the office sofa would look very appealing indeed at this moment.

He reached an empty cell and paused, frowning. He moved to the next across the corridor; also empty. And the next. He ran through the numbers again: yes, two of his men were missing. Why would anyone choose to locate themselves closer than necessary to the decisive blasts of cold air coming in that window? The next room was also empty, and the two beyond. Quite obviously, courtesy hadn't simply prompted two of them to leave a room available for him away from the worst of the cold! So, where were they?

Feeling more than a little cross and put out, he continued down the corridor. The chill and damp were pronounced at this end. That window might let in daylight, but it really should be boarded up if it couldn't economically be fixed. A waste of what little heat the old walls managed to retain. Poor husbanding of resources, clearly. He wondered if he might include a discreet suggestion with the cheque CI5 would despatch? CI5 was unlikely ever to need this refuge again, but, still, such unnecessary inefficiency rankled.

He reached the second-to-last doorway and paused to ascertain that there was indeed a shadowed lump on the bed. That was all right, then. He was turning away to check the last cell, just to make sure all his flock was accounted for, when some oddity drew him back. He looked more closely, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. Clamping his lips together, he turned and moved to the last cell: empty.

The irritation returned tenfold. With it came a suffocating sense of unreality. He took a moment to draw a deep breath, the air cold, moist, and tinged with a smell of mould from the soaked stones framing the window. With his nerves somewhat calmed, he walked back to the previous doorway and stepped inside.

And here were his two missing men. He could see dark hair against pale cloth, but the curls on the other figure were the only distinctive feature in the gloom. They were enough for him to identify them. A sour taste was back in his throat. The beef stew at supper had been warm and filling but on the greasy side, and he'd had a touch of indigestion since eating. A bubble of gas prickled his throat. He swallowed convulsively.

There was a slight movement on the crowded bed and the gleam of eyes settled on him. No sound was made and no further movement was essayed. But the eyes rested on him. Waiting. A challenge? Oh, very like. Cowley moved forward, stopping a pair of feet away from the bed. The eyes never wavered from his own.

They were lying on their sides, which was certainly the only way two men could occupy that narrow bed! And it couldn't be comfortable, pressed closely together yet still teetering on each edge. They had two blankets--they must have taken the second from one of the other cells--and their coats on and made a large, cumbersome shape.

Effort had nevertheless been expended to make at least one of them as comfortable as possible. The beds had no pillows, but Doyle's head rested on Bodie's dark-sleeved arm. Doyle was rather more securely anchored on the bed, only his bent knees exceeding the edge, whereas Bodie's backside hovered a couple of inches into thin air and one foot dangled. The other leg was crooked over Doyle's legs. Bodie's arm was wrapped snugly around Doyle's midriff, his body warming all of Doyle's back, the blankets wrapped around Doyle, keeping Doyle warm.

Always Doyle, it was. Cowley's fingers twitched into embryonic fists before he consciously relaxed them and looked back to the gleam of watchful eyes. Eyes that peered at him over the dark mount of Doyle's blanket-wrapped shoulder.

"How long?" He pitched his voice low, having no desire to awaken Doyle.

"Eight months," Bodie returned as quietly, undoubtedly with his own reasons for not wanting to disturb his partner.

Cowley drew in a calming breath and searched for order in the chaos of his mind, yet still managed only an inadequate response. "Why?"

Bodie didn't answer. His eyes continued to watch Cowley, waiting for clarification of the fuzzy question.

Cowley felt the rush of clean fury, untainted by other emotions. It was a stupid risk for them to take, bunking together in this blatant way. All for what--to keep Doyle warm? He couldn't abide stupidity and he wouldn't have it, not in his men. Especially not in these men--in this man.

"Why are you flaunting it? And here, of all places!"

Bodie's voice was a thread of sound barely louder than the whistling of the wind through the window in the corridor: "He won't be much use to you if he gets pneumonia, will he? You wouldn't send him off with McCabe, so he got stranded here. You couldn't really expect I'd just ignore him and leave him to deal with the cold on his own. I'm not as keen on throwing him to the wolves--of whatever sort--as you're always ready to do."

"Good heavens, man, it was nothing but a crease! It barely scraped his arm. Henderson is the one I should have got out before the road became impassable; that wrist is likely more than merely sprained--"

"Well, that's Henderson's problem. And Walker's, if he cares." Bodie's voice was still a whisper, yet it communicated an unyielding hardness.

Angry, Cowley realised, and added Bodie's anger--predictable!--to his own to make an inferno of rage. Eight months it had been going on for, had it? _Eight_?

"Why, Bodie? In the Lord's good name, why?"

Doyle shifted. The gleam of Bodie's eyes disappeared as he ducked his head, murmuring an unheard something into his partner's ear and tightening his grip. When Doyle settled, the outline of Bodie's head lifted and the eyes settled again on Cowley.

"Does it matter? You made it clear you didn't want me. Or need me."

I never said I didn't want you, Cowley thought, from a deep well of familiar pain. Only that I couldn't have you, not any longer, not any more, not all of your devotion...and more. He closed his eyes and lived again the wrench of putting away from himself for ever the touch and intimate presence and potential love this loyal and passionate young man had offered him. Their relationship had grown with a seductive mix of slowness and inevitability over the four years Bodie had been in CI5. The joy of loyalty and shared interests had burgeoned into something new in the aftermath of Barry Martin's betrayal, when he and Bodie were in hospital together. The connection forged then had slowly blossomed in the two years following in shared drinks and meals, in moments of instinctual understanding, in the likeness of their military approach to problems and life. With the fire of youth offering to warm his sterile, late-middling years, it had been nigh irresistible to take that one extra step into sexual communion, but he had managed to deny himself. To deny both of them.

A heady two years of platonic closeness the like of which he hadn't enjoyed with a companion in his work for uncounted years. Not with Barry growing apart from him--so much further apart than he had understood until it was too late--and Brian with issues of his own with which to contend, unsharable, unknowable. Bodie, now, was the youth he had been; though Doyle was the prototype of the man Cowley had become.

Doyle: ever a prickly thorn between them. If Bodie was like himself as he had been and Doyle could be like himself as he'd become, the two younger men were so different from each other that they'd been the logical choice for a partnership. He'd created that team long before he was drawn to a pair of warm, smiling eyes that had flirted and teased in between radiating understanding and concern. Doyle was always a part of the equation. Cowley had needed Bodie to be the best asset to CI5 he could be, and Doyle was the means to achieving that end just as Bodie steadied the more erratic tendencies in his hot-headed and idealistic partner. The two complemented each other as successfully as he'd foreseen and counted on and set in motion.

But this! That Doyle should ever have come to this--and that Bodie should have wanted it.... Aye, well, it hurt.

He spoke from the bitterness of loss. "You're a fool. To risk everything--"

"Nothing's risked. Not with me and Doyle. That was your argument."

And his problem: he caught the unspoken meaning. Eight months ago, he had rejected Bodie's offer of discreet sexual companionship to go with their close working relationship, leaving both of them bereft to deal with the situation as they would. He'd just never expected-- Though he should have, he reckoned now. Oh, he should have.

"And if I terminate your employment with CI5 because of this indiscretion?"

The silence was perhaps slightly longer this time, but not assuredly so.

"If it's a choice between you and him, it'll be him."

Cowley wanted to lash out, to say that Doyle wouldn't make the same choice--but he wasn't certain enough to approach that ground for fear of falling through the ice. That Doyle had become...more than Bodie's partner was in itself shocking. Cowley reproached himself for not having seen it before; for having focused so much on Bodie that Doyle, other than his usefulness, was a blank slate. How Doyle would react in any given situation, what Doyle would do--outside of the job--how he thought, what he wanted: all was unknown territory Cowley had never cared to explore.

"Such lengths just to get up my nose?" he whispered, still bitter, but mindful of the man sleeping, ironically, between them. "I expected better of you."

"Yeah, I reckon you expected undying loyalty, cleaving to you for all time even though nothing could come of it."

The voice, as cold as the draughts insinuating themselves down Cowley's neck, broke off as Doyle muttered and shifted again. Cowley watched with a remote pain that he knew would later peak into agony as his mind re-ran these images. Doyle wanted to change position. It was Bodie who turned them, shifting himself onto his back, lifting the constricting blankets and pulling Doyle to rest prone on him. Bodie split his legs so that the bed supported Doyle securely; one of Bodie's legs was pushed almost off the edge. Doyle sighed and settled as Bodie wrapped the blankets about them both again, best as he could reach. Doyle's tousled head fit perfectly, Cowley noted with an oblique pang, in the angle between Bodie's shoulder and neck.

It hurt more than he could ever have imagined to see a broad, capable hand smooth the curls out of the way of Bodie's mouth, and then both hands settle on Doyle's back, small moving shapes under the covers that stilled once Doyle did.

Loss punctured him, deflating his emotions. Resignation was seeping into him like moist tendrils dampening the fire of his anger even as he tried to cling to the false sense of life in its warmth.

"You can't stay like that."

"No." Bodie's voice, less harsh, soughed against his partner's unruly hair. "I'll turn us back onto our sides soon. But he's warm and comfortable enough and so am I--which is more than any of that lot are."

_Or you are, or will be_: Cowley heard the unspoken addendum, the hidden but shouted message. That Bodie had cared deeply for him, he'd long known; but that he would go to such lengths to punish Cowley for rejecting him!--well. He supposed Bodie was as little able to fully grasp the reasons for Cowley's sacrifice of their chance at happiness together as Joe Public might understand what spurred the brethren to choose a life of constraint and denial within the walls of this precinct.

He felt the sadness of Bodie's and his own shared, hopeless situation. At least Bodie was making the best of it. He had the adaptability of a man accustomed from a tender age to making do and taking what he could get and not mourning overlong for what was out of his reach. And he was still young and ardent enough to cleave to what was available, and be glad of it. Cowley couldn't find it in himself to begrudge Bodie his attempt to find solace.

Bodie must surely know, though, as Cowley did, that Doyle was hardly a man to settle for being second best for long. No matter how safe and comfortable Bodie made him, Doyle would demand more. Cowley knew it; was as sure of it as he could be certain of anything about Doyle. Pride: a sin Doyle shared with Cowley along with their other common attributes. It gave him a touch of consolation, cold and remote though it was, to temper the resignation.

"Aye, well, lad, I can't truly blame you for taking comfort where you can. For as long as it lasts."

He was turned away and had taken a step towards the doorway when Bodie spoke in an insidious, inescapable whisper.

"I'm not on the rebound, if that's what you're thinking. I wanted him from the start, but he wouldn't have me. Not then. Takes time to woo, Doyle does. He doesn't trust easily. I didn't understand that at the beginning--that it could be a matter of time. And you were there, lonely and needy, the way Doyle wasn't, not then. Later, it seemed as though you needed me more. When you turned me down, though, I was free to make a second play for Doyle: a serious one."

Cowley moved without looking back, striving to escape the thread of sound that inexorably followed him even as he hastened his uneven steps: Fled, fled the whisper of unendurable truth.

"He was always my first choice."


End file.
